Galaxies and the Universe

What is a Galaxy ? Solar System Distance from Earth to Sun = 93,000,000 miles = 8 light-minutes To define what a galaxy is, we start with something close to home - our own solar system - and its place in our galaxy. The distance from the Earth to the Sun is 93 million miles (150 million km), or 8 light-minutes. That is, the time it takes light from the sun to reach Earth is 8 minutes. The entire solar system is 5.5 light-hours across. That is, light takes 5.5 hours to cross the solar system. Size of Solar System = 5.5 light-hours

What is a Galaxy? Stellar Region 30 light-years Sun (solar system too small to be seen on this scale) 30 light-years Neighboring stars can be grouped into stellar regions. The solar neighborhood is about 30 light-years across. A light year is the distance light travels in one year, and is about 6 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) [Note that in some regions stars can be clustered quite closely together. Thus, some neighborhoods may be more crowded than others.]

What is a Galaxy? A Galaxy is: a massive collection of stars, gas, and Sun’s Stellar Region A Galaxy is: a massive collection of stars, gas, and dust kept together by gravity A stellar region is just a small portion of a galaxy. A galaxy is a massive collection of stars, gas, and dust held together by its own gravity. Galaxies can range in size from 6,000 to 350,000 light-years across. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 105,000 light-years in diameter. The galaxy pictured here is the Andromeda Galaxy, which is the nearest large galaxy to our own. We think the Milky Way looks very much like Andromeda. 100,000 light-years

What is a Galaxy? If our solar system was the size of a cell in the human body, our galaxy would still measure over one mile across. Galaxies are enormous in size. This slide shows the scale of our galaxy by analogy to the size of a cell in the human body. [A cell in the human body is about 50 microns (or 0.00005 meters) across.] Using this same analogy, the Andromeda Galaxy would be 22 miles away.

Where did they come from? Galaxies first formed in the densest spots in the Universe. By the time the Universe was a few hundred million years old, the densest regions had ceased expanding and began to collapse Matter in these areas did not expand rapidly with the big bang These areas formed dense groups of rotating stars which became galaxies

Where did they come from? A gigantic star formed at the center of the galaxy. It is so large, it’s gravity causes it to collapse under its own weight and form a black hole. There is a black hole in the center of every galaxy.

Classification of Galaxies Hubble Tuning Fork

There are two main classes of galaxies organized by Hubble ELIPTICAL Spherical galaxies classified on a scale of 0 to 7 0 is a ball shape, and 7 looks like a dish SPIRAL Central nucleus surrounded by arms of stars Spiral or barred spiral The bar is a dense area of stars

Galaxies On a blank sheet of paper write the numbers 1 – 15 For each slide, write the type of galaxy as classified by the Hubble Tuning Fork diagram.

An illustration of our Milky Way galaxy